


Long Shadows

by chaosmanor



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-26
Updated: 2004-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Long Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.

In the dream Viggo was standing in a bakery, somewhere in New Zealand. He could tell it wasn't the US, the pastries had different names on the little cards beside them, and the soda cans all looked strange. There were birthday cakes on display, smeared in chocolate ganache, and he found himself wondering whose birthday he was supposed to be remembering. The woman behind the counter looked enquiringly at him, and he pointed at a chocolate croissant. She put it in a bag and handed it to him.

When he took the bag, the buttery smell of the pastry reached him, and the spicy chocolate filling too. He gave the bag to Orlando, who was standing beside him.

Viggo's eyes fixed on the hat Orlando was wearing pulled down low over his ears. It was made of some sort of fleecy material, soft gray, and Viggo knew how it would feel if he touched it.

He watched Orlando bite into the croissant, flakes of the pastry sticking to Orlando's lips as his face lit up in delight; and he held the pastry, still protectively half in the white paper bag, for Viggo to taste. Viggo bit into the warm pastry, and the chocolate drizzles on the top crumbled, and the filling exploded into his mouth, all warm smooth sweetness.

 

Viggo woke suddenly from his dream, his orgasm so intense it was painful, and he let himself feel disappointment that he was only dreaming. He didn't think he had ever bought Orlando a pastry in New Zealand, and he tried to chase down the elements of the dream.

 

There was a lot of background noise at The Green Parrot, and they were making most of it. Elijah, Dom and Billy were clowning around with the waitress as she cleared the table, and Viggo leant back in his chair and across behind Orlando to hear Ian speaking over the noise. "Darling," Ian drawled. "Don't you just love taking the children out to dinner with us?"

Viggo went to agree, and Orlando leant back in his chair suddenly, bumping Viggo's shoulder and trapping his arm against the back of the chair. "We may be brutes, but we're pretty brutes," he said to Ian, fluttering his eyelashes at him and then Viggo in turn.

Ian began to laugh, and Viggo joined him, and Elijah stood up and said, "We heard that Ian, and for that we're not going to share our Veuve Clicquot with you." Elijah then produced a bottle from under the table with a flourish.

Orlando leant forward again, releasing Viggo's arm, even though Viggo hadn't even tried to pull if free.

When the waitress handed around the brandy snifters, Viggo declined one, knowing he had to drive home, and, once home, deal with the last minute rewrites for the next day.

Orlando, sitting beside him, held his glass up to Viggo's nose for him to smell the brandy. Viggo breathed in subdued fire, and nodded at Orlando, then watched as Orlando took the glass back, swirled and sniffed and then tasted the golden liquid. Orlando's eyes lit with appreciative delight, and the light in his eyes stayed with Viggo for a long time.

 

Orlando howled beside him, the pair of them sounding like demented wolves, and Viggo caught a sudden glimpse of their very unhappy driver, obviously wishing that being Barrie's P.A. didn't also include having to drive the actors around.

Next to him, Orlando incongrously had his make up on, but not his wig, making Viggo long for his camera, then Brett in the front seat turned around and took a photo of the both of them in the middle of the next howl.

Becky very pointedly asked them if they would like some music then, and Orlando took his arm from around Viggo's neck and reached into his backpack for his discman. He handed the disc from it forward, and Viggo hoped desperately it was Elvis Costello, not Abba.

When the drum beat beginning of "Three Hits" came on, Viggo thought about hugging Orlando, but stopped himself in case it inspired another round of howling and forever earned him the enmity of Becky.

During the second last track, when the Indigo Girls were singing, _"This is not a fighting song,"_ Orlando leant forward again and took a soft fleecy gray hat, that Viggo knew he called a beanie, out of his back pack and pulled it on down to his ears.

Viggo looked at him, pale make up, gelatine ears, Legolas costume and beanie, and said, "Oh my God, Jay and Silent Bob have dressed Legolas today."

Orlando looked back at him and said, "Snoogums," in Legolas' voice and Viggo laughed and reached out and pulled the beanie off Orlando's head.

 

As for the croissant, Viggo sometimes wished his subconcious had more subtlety.

 

Viggo had never done anything about his lingering desire for Orlando. Now, at four in the morning, he wasn't quite sure why. At the time, it had seemed like everyone had wanted everybody. Working together for so long, going away on location, suffering through Helm's Deep, of course desire had grown. Viggo wanted other people too:  
Elijah with his butterfly wing eyes; Liv, though he was never sure how much of that was him, and how much was Aragorn; Karl, which was as much about the ease with which Karl rode his horse as anything else. And there was Craig, all wicked humour; and Ian, so urbane.

All that free floating desire, and he had never acted on any of it.

They had all drifted apart after principal filming, tattoos not withstanding. Viggo still kept in touch with Dom, Billy and Sean. Bean of course, Viggo and Astin had hated each other on first sight, and closer acquaintance had not helped matters. He exchanged emails with John Noble erratically, despite a suspicion the man was a prat, and had dinner with Ian whenever he was in LA.

And Orlando. They hugged like best friends at the premieres, and exchanged phone numbers, again. Then Orlando went back to his shiny glittery life, with his rake thin blonde girlfriend and his escalating career. Viggo had clippings about Orlando pinned to his studio walls, amongst the jumble of his life. Occasionally, on nights like tonight, he'd turn on his laptop and check the fan-run websites, looking for recent photographs of Orlando. Then he'd do what he was about to do that night; delete the temporary internet sites, empty the 'history' folder, and lie back down again, alone in his bed.

 

It wasn't that he minded unrequited desire, it just seemed that it should have stopped by now. This was four years later, more than long enough.

Four years. Some people cast long shadows, and Orlando was one of them.

 

At the time, Orlando had not seemed that special. He was just another kid caught up in the ongoing boy scout adventure that Peter Jackson was nominally in charge of. Viggo had tried to reconcile the big kid that Orlando was, running wild with the hobbits, drinking himself into painful hangovers midweek and surfing on the weekends, with the person he sometimes glimpsed.

When Orlando has asked Rachine to interpret Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" into elvish during language class, Viggo had begun to wonder about him. When Orlando had played Steeleye Span and Tom Lehrer in the make up trailer, despite Sean Bean's requests for silence, Viggo had wondered more.

When Orlando had told Sean Bean, who was complaining about Orlando's cologne reeking out the trailer, that, "You're just being a parent, you have to talk like an adult before I'll even consider your complaint," Viggo had stopped reading his book in surprise at Orlando knowing about transactional analysis.

In the end, Viggo stopped trying to work out what Orlando knew, or how he knew it. It was enough just to be around him.

Except that filming had eventually finished, and then Orlando wasn't there anymore. Maybe it was time to change that.

* * * * * *

 

It was late afternoon, and Viggo had been holding the white cardboard box for quite a while, leaning against a trailer amidst the chaos of location shooting, and waiting for Orlando.

He'd had to get pushy to bypass the security on the set, but it had worked and there was large red visitor's badge clipped to his jacket. The afternoon had been bright, if cold, and Viggo had stood for a while on the edge of the ridge overlooking the valley, watching the cast on horses ride over the stony ground repeatedly whilst a helicopter circled them, filming. Location work like this was satisfying; you got to be outside all day, and there were no lines.

When the sun was low in the sky, the horses and riders had begun to make their way up the ridge to the trailers and horse floats, and Viggo had stepped back to where he was now, mostly out of sight.

He slid down the trailer side and sat cross-legged on the ground, content to wait. He had caught sight of Orlando briefly after he had dismounted, before he disppeared into a trailer, and Viggo kept watch on the door of that trailer.

The sun was on the horizon when Orlando stepped back down from the trailer, and Viggo watched as a young woman in a thick coat pointed at where he was sitting on the ground. Orlando's shadow was elongated, and bobbed along towards Viggo as he walked. Viggo got to his feet, recognising, even in silhouette, the particular gait of Orlando's when his back had been troubling him.

Then Orlando stood over him, occluding the sun and Viggo could see his face again.

"Viggo," he called out, delight in his voice. "You old bastard. What are you doing in Spain? Haven't you got a movie to promote?"

Then Orlando's arms were around Viggo's neck in a warm embrace. Viggo said, "Hidalgo promotion doesn't start for a couple of weeks. I'm contractually obliged to do it and I have to wear a suit, and shoes and socks," and he knew he sounded particularly aggrieved at the last. "But they're not getting a moment of time I'm not forced to give them."

Orlando pulled back and said, "So, why are you here?"

Viggo bent down and picked up the white cardboard box. "I wanted to give you these," he said, and he opened the lid.

Orlando peered in, then reached out and picked up a croissant.

"Pastries?" he asked curiously. "Why?"

"Facturas. Medialunas. Medialunas con chocolate," Viggo responded, and he held his breath as Orlando bit into the croissant in his hand.

"Oh yum," Orlando said around a mouthful. "That is good. Want some?" He held out the croissant for Viggo to try.

Viggo bit into it, suddenly feeling it was surreal to be sharing his dream while awake, and the chocolate filling was luscious, glossy with butter, thick with egg yolk, and rough with cocoa. Tiny flakes of pastry were caught in Orlando's beard, and Viggo reached out and wiped them off his face.

 

Over dinner, Viggo tried to explain to Orlando why he was there, and Orlando stared at him.

"You dreamt you bought me a chocolate croissant, so you came to Spain?" Orlando said incredulously. "You have way too much time on your hands."

Viggo silently agreed with Orlando. "We said we'd get together after the Wellington premiere, so I figured I'd surprise you."

Orlando leant back in his chair and said, "I just love pastries. Did you know that? I'm planning on rolling around on the dessert trolley. Want to join me?" and Viggo spluttered on the wine he was drinking.

"You are talking figuratively, aren't you?" he checked, and Orlando laughed and nodded.

 

Viggo's flight left Madrid at sunset and the plane flew west, following the sun. He opened his journal and listed the colours of the sky.

Pearl.  
Pewter.  
Mauve.  
Lilac.  
Gray.  
Violet.  
Indigo.

He watched the band of cloud on the horizon out of the plane's window.

Gold.  
Brass.  
Copper.  
Chocolate.

When the cloud was the colour of Orlando's nipples, Viggo leant his head against the window, and the vibration of the plane reminded him of way Orlando had groaned when he slid into Viggo.

The plane flew west, following the sun, and it was the longest sunset of Viggo's life.


End file.
